In the wake of a one-man Cordova to Midtown crime spree that included a double stabbing, a carjacking, an attempted hit-and-run, a police pursuit and a car crash, Maddy Linton made the best of it.

"Honestly, it's scary,'' said Linton, 24, as she supervised a Girl Scout cookie stand outside Kroger, just feet from where the madness started Sunday morning.

This normally placid suburban shopping center near Macon and Houston Levee roads erupted about 10:55 a.m. when a 21-year-old Memphis man inexplicably attacked a shopper carrying a bag of groceries, then swept across the city.

"The suspect stabbed (the shopper) in the back of the neck with a butcher knife,'' said Shelby County Sheriff's Office spokesman Earle Farrell.

According to Farrell, the suspect then stabbed a woman in a nearby McDonald's parking lot before hijacking an SUV from a third victim and leading police on a slow-speed chase.

As the man fled west on Walnut Grove he tried "to run down'' a security guard at Hope Church before eventually crashing west of the University of Memphis, Farrell said.

Shelby County Sheriff's deputies investigate the are in a parking lot where one of two victims was stabbed Sunday(Photo: Marc Perrusquia)

"The chase was like an O.J. chase,'' Farrell said, referring to O.J. Simpson's infamous 1994 slow-moving flight through Los Angeles after allegedly killing two people. "He never got over 25 mph.''

"When the suspect reportedly drove toward the security guards, one guard fired at the suspect disabling the vehicle which only allowed it to go about 30 mph,'' Memphis Police Department spokesman Karen Rudolph said in an email. MPD joined the pursuit and helped capture the suspect.

Police arrested the suspect after he crashed near Southern and Greer west of the University of Memphis. Authorities have not released his name.

The two stabbing victims were in non-critical condition at Baptist East, Farrell said.